Two months before I closed my Mr.T Israel Army Navy Surplus and T-Shirt Company in Jerusalem, a buddy of mine invited me to join him at a workshop for directors, writers and actors in Tel Aviv, sponsored by the Tel Aviv Community Theater (TACT). This offer came at just the right time. I was very worried about going into one of those retirement depressions, which had happened with many of my friends. Suddenly one has nothing to do and nowhere to go. “I’ve lost my identity.” The wife takes over. “Why don’t you come shopping with me dear?” she asks.

Yikes, I wasn’t going to let this phenomenon happen to me! So there I was, a week later, in a small room at the Tel Aviv Museum library watching a couple struggle through a small scene from The Audition by Neil Simon. To put it mildly it wasn't a great first reading. Next! Suddenly I was called upon to read from a scene by James Thurber - as follows:

Producer: "Sir Walter Mitty, the producers have accepted you as the lead in West Side Story, Cats, Oklahoma, South Pacific, My Fair Lady and Carousel. However, opening night for all seven is on the same night in only one week… CAN YOU DO IT?"

Sir Walter Mitty: “Gentlemen (long pause), no problem."

My reading was just awful, atrocious. I wanted to slink out the door and head on back to Jerusalem.

At the end of this first evening we were informed that the workshop was leading toward a proper showcase production to be performed in front of, (gulp), a live audience, two months from then. I said to myself, “there is no way I can do this.” I hadn’t been on stage as an actor for over 50 years, since Madison Junior High School to be exact.

Like a bolt from who knows where, I had one of those Shalom Aleichem-Tuvia the Milkman moments. I had a silent discussion with myself. If I quit the workshop, it’s “why don’t you go shopping with me, dear?” However, if I stick it out, I will make new friends and challenge my creative juices. On the other hand, “I’m a terrible actor and I will only make a complete fool of myself.” On the other hand, “where’s your courage Stevenson? Go for it”!

Two months later I performed an 8-minute monologue on the stage at Beit Yad Lebanim in front of 300 people. I wrote it. The producer of the evening, Madeleine Mordecai, felt that I should be the last act to perform that night. I wasn’t sure if this was because Maddy wanted to end the show with a bang or because I was just that bad.

The audience loved it … to my amazement. And me, well, I felt as if I had just completed the Boston Marathon for the first time or had just conducted Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony.

A couple of years have passed since then. Today I woke up on the morning after our last performance of Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady. This is my 7th production with Jerusalem's renowned Encore Educational Theater Company, where I've played ornery ranchers, lusty pirates, frightening ghosts, bumbling constables, hearty whalers, cockney vegetable vendors, saucy Oxford chaps, a horse peddler and more. I was so happy with myself. But I also knew with certainty that now, finally, the ties to my business, Mr.T, were history. When I took my morning shower I belted out "I’m getting married in the morning”, and "there’s no business like show business". I was that young energetic university student all over again.

Terry Teachout, the Wall Street Journal’s theater critic, noted recently, “I hope I never forget that to be a passionate amateur is one of the wisest and best things that a human being can be - even if it leads him to make a fool of himself on stage. We should all be such fools for love.” After numerous productions, some written by me, some by Rogers and Hammerstein, Jerry Brock and Sheldon Harnik, Gilbert and Sullivan, Beit Zvi's Daniel Schwartzman and now Lerner and Loewe’s My Fair Lady, I can say with certainty that I have definitely passed the test - I AM THAT FOOL!

Jerry Stevenson will next appear in "The Gondoliers" by Gilbert and Sullivan.